corrente

This post is essentially an addendum to one of Digby's recent posts titled There He Goes Again. The "He" in this case is Jim Wilkinson, deputy national security adviser for communications, who is attempting to defy the laws of empirical physical evidential reality by claiming that the Bush administration's primary foreign policy priority upon seizing the White House, and bolting the doors and drawing the shades, was the delicate task of crushing the al Qaeda menace. Not, as critics claim, selling defrosted Star Wars/NMD fantasias, stomping the Anti-Ballistic Missile Teaty to death, and chasing Saddam Hussein down a hidey hole. Heavens no.

So, before you read the rest of this post you probably should read Digby's post first, if you haven't already, because it essentially provides the background for what will follow here. Read: There He Goes Again

Digby cites a June 2002 Jason Vest article titled "Why Warnings Fell On Deaf Ears" which appered in The American Prospect. (See link to Jason Vest article available via Digby's post which is linked above).

Vest also wrote an earlier piece titled Darth Rumsfeld which appeared in the Feb. 26, 2001 issue of The American Prospect and also goes right to the point with respect to the designs Rumsfeld and the neocons had in mind long before they entered the White House in 2000. And those objectives and agendas have everything to do with trotting out rogue-state nuclear threat scare scenarios and reanimating space based missle defense programs and disposing of the ABM Treaty as a necessary step in realizing such objectives. Everything to do with what they were unboubtably focusing on prior to 9/11 when they should have been listening to guys like Richard Clarke who were emphasizing the dangers and threats posed by global terrorism networks such as al Qaeda in particular. See: Darth Rumsfeld

For example - Vest notes:

In 1998 Gaffney [Frank Gaffney - Center for Security Policy] gave Rumsfeld CSP's "Keeper of the Flame" Award for producing the document that revitalized the Reagan Star Wars concept.

That document was "The Rumsfeld Report" (1998). No surprise, Gaffney's CSP was funded by defense contractors who profit from those very same NMD programs being shined up by the Rumsfeld Report.

With respect to the ABM Treaty Vest relates:

Perhaps worst of all, for missle defense to become a reality, the landmark Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty needs to be amended-something the Russians are not eager to do. No matter, says Rumsfeld; at his confirmation hearings, he dismissed the ABM treaty as "ancient history" and said he had no compunction about abrogating it.

In July of last year I posted a long item to Eschaton called Team B 43?. It is essentially a summary of this same information - Vest's Darth Rumsfeld article mentioned above - so, if anyone wants to look at it, to glean any additional info you may find there, heres the link. Team B 43?" It's also mirrored here for some reason: Team B 43?

Just above my Team B 43? post, on the same Eschaton archive page, is a post written by Leah which details the increase in threat assessments as they relate to Iraq.

The January-June 2002 report, however, raised alarm at unprecedented levels rhetorically, though it provided little new evidence of increased capability. This report, which moved the nuclear program from the last program mentioned to the front of the assessment, devoted six long paragraphs to the nuclear weapons, mostly detailed narrative of Iraq's nuclear history and the IAEA inspections and dismantlement process. [See: Antidote to Instacrap Eschaton archives, July 2003]

Another article by Vest which can be found at The American Prospect, and details the "Rumsfeld clique" thinking on national defense and security as it relates to the above, can be found here: Punch-Drunk on Hardball: Online Sidebar to "Darth Rumsfeld" -- Vest writes:

While Rumsfeld's clique is hot on missile defense, weaponizing space, demonizing China and funding the Iraqi opposition, there are career officers and civilians leery of weapons programs with a ridiculous burn rate, who don't see a need to create additional enemies. Their views are closer to Powell's, and how they interface across bureaucratic lines will be interesting to watch. "If Powell and Rumsfeld come together and say, 'Let's use the collective capability of Defense and State and the power of the CINCs to do cohesive and coherent things in the service of sound policy,' it could be pretty awesome," the Pentagon veteran says. "But that depends on a lot of factors that aren't clear yet, and the picture could be much more fractured. Because one of the problems with defense modernization figuring out who the fuck the enemy is. Expect Rumsfeld and his people to create enemies."

So, as I said. This is just an addendum to what Digby posted. Just more reminders from the memory hole for anyone who wants to go back and take a second look at what the Bush cronies were really bothering about prior to 9/11.

And, as an added timely reminder, as it relates to the upcoming Dick and "W" one show only performance before the 9/11 Commission, consider this prediction by Vest in Feb 2001:

Conventional wisdom holds that the Bush administration will be unlike any other, with Bush as president and Cheney as CEO, or Bush as president and Cheney as prime minister (with oversight of the defense and diplomacy portfolios). In a sense, Ford all over again: Rummy back at the Pentagon, Cheney as the sitting president's right hand man, and a secretary of state who's potential trouble. [Darth Rumsfeld]

Ther ya have it. Jason Vest restoring the wise to the conventional wisdom.

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